Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1887-10-21
AGRICULTURAL.

AuulkfAuuhA ~ NfihuuAa
While every locality, north, SOUTH east
and west is blooming ITSELF as the very
best place of all to settle in Vermont seems
never TO think Of advertising her merits as
an agricultural state Yet she is second TO
very few in the Union in the quality Of her
soil, the saubrity Of her climate, and her
nearness 10 the best markets. All she
lacks is cheaper transportation, and that
she is in the way Of getting. We have TO
thank the grange for that and now, hav-
ing started this good work. it must and
will be pushed on to n complete success.
Meantime, why cannot the grange do some
thing 20 advertise Vermont abroad Her
farms are good and very cheap, and under
skilled hands with efficient capital, they
can be worked prolitably, even under pres
ent disadvantages. English farmers seem
even more anxious to emigrate than the
most restless of Yankees. Let the grange
advertise our advantages, and our cheap
farms for sale in the English agricultural
journals Many first class farms are for
sale in Vermont at hardly more than a
years rental of no better farms in England.
Here are no church rates, few paupers,
light taxes. Why not spend little money
in making the facts known to our British
brethren. II.
Hoskins of the Rural Vermonter, we hear
tily approve 1t is strange that it has new
err occurred to the leading men of this state
that something should be done to encour-
age immigration to Vermont Every in
ducement has been held out and every ia
cilty offered to encourage emigration
nothing for immigration consequently the
E 4 Of Lose
in the depreciation of real estate, especial
Nv of farms This is one of the reasons
why farm in Vermont. when it can be
sold at any price, brings only half or less
than half its former valuation, and often
less than half what farm of no greater
real value would bring in some of the other
states. The inevitable result of a stationa-
ry or decreasing rural population is the de
probation of real estate. The fault is not
in the farms themselves, but in the fact
that there are none to occupy them. If it
were possible to take up one of our Yer
mont farms, with all the improvements, its
large, well finished and convenient house,
barns and other buildings, its abundance
of running water from a pure spring, its
substantial fences, its maple sugar orchard,
its wealth of fruit, and move it unchanged
in soil, surface or climate, to some point in
the distant west where the tide of immi-
CATION is pouring in, it could be sold in "a
hours for twice as much as the owner asks
for it here
Hundreds of thousands of people are
looking for farm homes. Now right here
in Vermont is the place for many thousand
of them but they do not know it. The
idea may be laughed at, but we need a com
missioner of emigration, such as many of
the southern and western states have to en-
courage emigrants to settle there to invite
immigration into Vermont. This is some
thing we have thought of for several years,
but there has been no encouragement to
make such a suggestion public. We believe
that a thoroughly competent and honest
man, who would work for the state more
than for himself, and who believes in Yer
mont and knows why he believes in it, if
backed by an appropriation of few thous
and dollars by the legislature, could put
many thousand farmers into the state, and
increase the value of its property 10y mil
lions. According to the census of 1880
the value of farms in Vermont was more
than 800, 900, 600 An increase in their
selling value of only ten per cent is ten
million dollars gain to the state. A loss of
ten per cent on the value of the farms is
ten million dollars loss We have lost
much more than that by encouraging emf
sta TO hNr
let the world know of our merits.